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Some of the figures are dead now and some are still about but it's just massive massive money that you're dealing with so every week it's a few hundred grand I'd be collecting and then you've got other drives as well a lot of them doing drop-offs and I phone them you know what's happening what's happening mum goes like they've all been arrested she said all of them your brother everybody it's all been over the papers your dad sees he's in prison at the minute and I think sure and she says oh he said your brother they got your brother got him here the police have come for you so I head over to Amsterdam and go to the safe house on the north side on our in our plane and they're not the door and the guy could several be answers a lot next lifer he's there he's one of my dad's workers they're a reliable guy and he says look your dad's been shot he's been shot in the chest and he says in a bad way we don't know if he's going to pull through and they eventually get bail and all of them are going to be released except at the gates as they've been released my dad gets caught back he said hold on a minute he's not allowed out the final gate he says you're kind of wanted for extradition your Tony Spencer says you wanted extradition to Holland you're for murder he's wanted in England for the conspiracy he's wanted in Holland for the murder questioned about another murder he's got seven years in Spain it looks about as bad as it could possibly be and at that point not a lot of people are really going to help boom we're on okay here we go at today's guest we'll get Jason Wilson yeah very good thanks for sending me your book we'll plug straight away the old man in me which is your dad your dad was a drug smuggler bank robber you get involved in the family business yeah definitely yeah but phenomenal stories in there and mad stories people getting shot in Holland people getting killed drugs all the madness there's a lot there yeah first and foremost how are you brilliant great at the minute you're right yeah good mate it's good to have you up in Scotland yeah not been here a while but yeah dropping money last time we'll come here yeah yeah it's nice same days mate uh yeah different all different now but as you know I'll go back to the start of my guests where you grew up and have it all began okay that's that's Coventry then isn't it um I'm from Cov my mom and dad are from Cov um my dad was a motorcycle mechanic when he started out mom she was a secretary uh she wanted a family and he wanted to be a millionaire basically that was his big ambition you're not going to do that doing bikes um so we started to do a bit buying and selling that sort of thing a bit of ducking and diving got to know all the faces around there uh and for a few years later when I'm born he's inside doing two years he's got caught caught some copper uh two tons of copper out in a in a cottage he was they were melting it down or doing something we've got two years for that uh but then when he comes out he starts doing um second hand shops uh you know it's going to be a straight businessman from that point on uh and that's what he starts to do in the next couple of years he starts setting up these little second hand shops uh around Coventry Harnell Lane and everywhere uh and at this uh this time it should be said his name's Shipley at this time because um later he'll change a dispenser um so he started setting these up and then kind of Lloyds and Westminster's and they named after banks and years later the rumor is these are the these are banks that he robs uh because he seems to have a like a double life he's a businessman but a bit of a villain as well um so those first few years I I don't see him a great deal he's always coming and going he's just kind of a distant figure uh always at work and then all of a sudden we have to move house we kind of go live with an aunt and uh me and my brother and my sister um so in that period it's we move house so and every sunday we start visiting him he's gone to a place that uh I'm told as the college which is a prison uh lay hill down in Gloucestershire so we start going there every sunday um and that's really where we get to know him because up to that point he's he's just uh his your dad coming and going and at that point uh we start sitting at a table just like we are now uh let's go and we start sitting at the table and he starts just talking about what he's doing he's doing all these business courses he's doing uh he's doing his o-levels the a-levels that sort of thing uh smuggling the cigarettes for him mates um so it's all it's all kind of very good but he's very idealistic and he's going to do these big businesses when he does come out um when did you realize it was a pleasant it was um I didn't I never I wouldn't do for a couple of years it was later he went to long last and I'd know it was a prison uh when were you at school uh I was in commentary remember my brother we were in cove like I said working-class area and everything um and like I said it was a normal family life we just live with my my uncle bill and at my aunt quite standard upbringing but we never really knew what he was doing like I said businessman villain really um he said uh he's at lay hill for two years and he's always coming back in the summer there's someone never really comes it's kind of you know next month next month next month I then eventually I'll come home one day and there's a big van outside the house and there's a few workers there and he's around the front and he's he's working on the engine he just says all right I say all right and that's it he's back he's been away he's like two odd years and it's like just nothing it's kind of all very understated and that's the way he was very cool relationship not really yeah he wasn't he wasn't emotional like a modern modern father's are quite emotional yeah you know all that hoggy I love your son and the people in those days never did that sort of thing it's just like banging their ear and yeah yeah it's like you kind of get in line uh but you never really had to do that because you kind of lot of respect for him uh big burly guy all very kind of very sharp mind very meticulous real discipline very ordered and that kind of counts he was like that with motorcycles but later he's like that with cookers and he's like that with drugs later as well whatever he does there's always a lot of order to it so he's kind of he's just he's constantly doing lists as well so it's like when we used to go to the prison they're all up his arms he'd have these lists on both arms and you get to the prison and there's a case the first bit it was always you know you know how was how was the drive and how's the car and how's you you know all the normal things and he'd do that no matter what if I saw him in prison in 10 20 years I was always the same and he was like when he got shot it was the same thing I go see him they say you know how's your trip and how's the car and all this sort of stuff it was always the same sort of thing very practical guy but was kind of sharp sense humor quite dark sense humor he'd laugh about anything you know you cut your hand and have a laugh about it and someone's an accident almost lose a leg he'd laugh about it it was it was kind of that sort of dark sense humor he had when did you realise he was on a leave a crime it wouldn't be till really till he went to Long Larton later what age were you I was about 11 then he got done for a bank robbery and at Long Larton it was a case of whereas earlier when we used to go to Lay Hill it was like a family day out you know you take food you have a picnic it was it was fantastic I'd be like you know kind of family all together you think wow this is this is great you highlight of the month really but a few years later this is after he's done all these businesses and cookers he's he's made millions of pounds in his cookers and these gymnasiums and then it starts to implode he's always overexpanded he's only been out in jail for a few years and he goes very big very fast and he becomes a real dominant figure in cove so far Gosford Street he has to cook a warehouse he's one of them he burns down for the insurance money that should have gone well but didn't because then CID get involved and it didn't fires before and always got away with it you see I've always claimed on the insurance this time they interfered and everything come started to come crashing down so he starts robbing banks but then he gets done on this silly one which is someone grasses us up grasses him up it's a cove bounce after who I recently found out thought my dad never knew what my dad always knew it was um so he gets 10 years for that and at that point we start visiting him at long light and and at that point you've kind of you know you're jailed you can't really hide it when I was like when I was six or seven you can see was at college and it's like all the kids are told your dad's away working he's on an oil rig or whatever but long light now he's in prison it's all life there's a lot of IRA there quite a few murderers and stuff all that sort of thing um and at long light and uh it's a little it's very different there you go there you have loads of mates in the first month so when you get to when you go inside it's a case of lots of people want to visit you initially and once they've done that they don't really go back because it's like they've got a story to tell um and it's a case of it really comes down to family and that's what it was like with him it was all my mom's family they would muck and help us out and my dad's family didn't do that much and I think they just kind of it's like when he'd been at lay hill they just left it to it it was always my mom's family who came up uh my dad's family was like well that's just the way it goes um and they're very defensive of him it's like sons he's been in prison a few times and now i'm rubbery and they were kind of stick up for him and they're kind of treat my mom and that as if it was their fault somehow you know always blaming somebody else see if he was making millions he had all the gems why didn't he throw banks because he overspent it rather than be very impatient it was like I want to do something now I haven't got the money now I'll just borrow it and it was a way he expanded very quickly because um really he should have consolidated he never went through that stage you know when you do business and you consolidate you think well now I need to build up some funds and then I'll start expanding again he never really did that and because he mixed with a lot of villains it was very easy for him to you know borrow money and you know he'd borrow the money from banks and then he'd go to but I suppose he'd call them loan sharks but they were mates of his but it's still paying interest on it like part of being mates is you don't take it don't take advantage of the mates that way though it would all the other way around they would take advantage of him it was kind of uh it's a bit off that was so a lot of it was impatient and he had two gyms they're kind of open by miss world mr universal that's a real big deal at the time um but then the women's money the women's gym makes decent money but then the men's kind of just loses it and he says you know stay patient with it all he's still doing the cookers but his attention switched and it was the cookers that was the goldmine that's where people always said you should have stuck with it because you're making like tens and tens of thousands every week and you wanted to expand you could have just stuck with it as a goldmine but anyway he robs the bank ends up inside got 10 years we go visiting month by month and then gradually things start to break down because normally the myth is that other villains step in and help the family and all this they don't really do that um there's no benefit for them in helping his family so we're kind of left to it for a few years and that's basically things just start troubling from there um and eventually they'll get divorced and go the separate ways and we'll move house because the house is a shit hole basically we've been really really left in it and we moved to a place called ills don't want you to real soft working class area uh and everything's kind of good again and then a couple of years past and there's a knock at the door and i'm sitting there and watching blockbusters at the time it's kind of i'm a student by this time like 16 years old and i go to the door and open it and he's just standing there in a suit he's just got out and it's uh he just comes in he has a glass of water and you know gives me like a he kind of gives me a kind of pats me on the shoulder yeah it's been only six and a half years but he was always very understated like it said he wasn't he wasn't that emotional generation it was like i'm back now i'm you know i'm gonna get working and got stuff with loads of i always got ideas my dad um so and then he zips off and he said well that's it it's kind of everything's changing he's coming on just like nothing's happened and over the next few weeks and months i get to know him a little bit um start going out driving with him which is what i used to do as a kid used to go to work with him on saturdays with me and my brother we used to go off driving and you go to meet all these people and that and it was always occasionally i mean he had an office never used it so all the meetings were on car parks and end of gardens and warehouses and the occasional pub and around their house we never used an office and i'd realize there was reasons for that later and we started doing the same thing again um i'd go off on meetings with him except this this time's a little bit different i'm 16 and he's kind of he's watching the movies on the car and it's like can you you just check no one's with us as we're surveillance yeah it's very surveillance savvy it turns out so he's kind of checking for all these and i'm kind of getting used to that keep your mouth shut you don't say this and i ain't got a clue what he's doing but he's talking about making a hell of a lot of money it's like he's going to make hundreds of thousands for the couple of months uh don't really know what it is is it drugs diamonds there at that age you don't really know um and there was one clue one day he asked me to copy some thing on counterfeit dollars fake money yeah just do you just want to show some people there and i don't normally say get 10 cents he said that with everything and whenever he said you need to buy anything it was always get 10 you don't have to go back then he's got all these different places to put them um so it it will turn out it's counterfeit dollars he's doing and he's he's got the plates and the press and he's got a gang and when he was in prison he was doing watercolor painting a lot of that was so you can get hold of the papers it was kind of that the use for dollars and the inks as well and he's got this little gang of you know ex-prisoners and he's kind of heading them and he's got this international distribution because uh he's been inside all this time he knows a lot of the irish and a lot of the dutch um he's gonna a few american he's gonna send it all around the world this these dollars but he's got this 24-hour surveillance on him as it turns out and they're on him from day one so he's on pages and phone you know phone boxes don't use i don't think my bells are about then so it's all get you know you check his page of art got to get to core box and that's all it was every day you went out with him that's what it was then all of a sudden he just disappears it's kind of you get home and mom says oh he does have to shoot off he's uh been police raids everywhere um so he was off he was off on the run and just got used to life without him for a while again who was it for you at 16 when you started going to meetings was it excitement for you or were you scared no it was just the same i did it when i was a kid it was the same old thing you meet these guys who are like the cough people and they're so called some of the gangsters or villains or robes or someone was just genuine businessman it was someone i'd always done since i was a kid so it was always quite normal to see these people and it's the same with the counterfeit you just go meeting people it's just they're just fellas but they're all they're all self-employed none of my dad's friends really work for other people they're also and the same as them they're all they're all self-employed always had their own businesses and always had their own things on the side it was just there when you used to watch Minder you know you see that uh ducking and diving culture of uh it's very like that you know your car lots and all that sort of thing so for me it was quite normal and at the time i was i was at college i was gone to study art at college um so he goes on the run for a year turns out in that time he'd gone to Leicester what was on the run for it's on the dollars these raids had happened they're looking for him so he had to get out of Coventry he didn't go far he only went to Leicester but then he takes up as a lodger and he's into the name Pat McKenna and he says you know i'm an accountant and he starts lodging at this place starts going out with the landlady before you know he's seeing the landlady uh he's mine is he he was he was a good looking guy yeah very smooth very charming very neat real great manners real polite um wherever he went he could he could attract women when you've got money and you've got power you you kind of get it massively uh so he was always kind of like they'd never search women out but they always kind of went after him and it was like i can help you with this and they're trying to so he ends up going out this land this landlady um she thinks it's pat mckenna an accountant he comes home every day at six o'clock reason is he can't be out after six o'clock because he's worried about getting you know roped in on something uh he doesn't use the phone just sits and watching videos like he did when i was a kid uh we always watched gangster movies when we were kids we never watched like none of the disney stuff together and we had videos and that and he'd watch all that papion and brew baker and uh lots of steve mcqueen he was always anti-heroes that's what he liked uh that's what he did with her anyway and all of a sudden he doesn't come back and it turns out he's been caught um i don't ring in cars at that point and uh he gets remanded to winston green they find out who he is charge him with the dollars and he's facing the big sentence because uh it's a hell of a lot um and by that point i'm up in manchester i'm in anime to the place called catalyst pictures uh i'm i'm working up there uh i come down to see him when i finished up there and go see him on a visit it's like you know fuck so we're here again you know it's like ground all day yeah it's uh so you go in and you're kind of he's going to take the lead of everything because he's always kind of in charge he always knows what he's doing he has no doubts about anything uh he explains what's going on with this doll this he's been fitted up of course um i know he hasn't because he's you're driving with him uh and then he explains that that he's had the papers come in and explains what it is and he says uh he's had a pen off one of the screws a bit of paper and he writes down 250 million he says that's what they're accusing me of you know of counterfeiting and i think well fuck sake if and he laughs about it he's like you know i'd never do that much and he just laughs it off and i'm like for fuck's sake you're never going to get out you know 250 million it's american dollars as well it's not like some crappy currency americans take it really seriously could deal get involved americans but they did get involved they send them because it's a counterfeit case they have to send fbi agents over and i'm told i told later they look at the dollars and they say okay these are fair enough they'll show us the counterfeits and they're told no you've got the counterfeits they're the ones he's doing the dollars at the end got really good and that's why they were really concerned they wanted the plates and they stayed over to try and get the plates and he wouldn't give them up he was like well fuck you you're not you're not getting on you're kind of he had that sort of attitude so he had two authority he didn't like the police at all did they try and make a deal give the plates lesser sentence i think they might have done they did they supposed to have done something like that but he was just adamant you're not having them he might have been just a look you dropped the whole case and you can have them but you're not just going to have them just knock a year off because i think i'm going to get off anyway how good were they the dollars you don't need to see usually fake 20s but the early ones weren't that good but the ones at the end were supposed to be outstanding you know because you kind of worked them up he was a good copious as a kid he used to do art very good copious my daughter's like that as well whether just you know take a photograph and they'll reproduce it perfectly and he could do that as a kid is that where you get that from yeah that's an artistic street that goes through the family I suppose but copious you know if you're going to be a counterfeit that's what you want to be able to do and i think that's why he was good at that and he had like i said he had that method of very detailed and everything he ever did is kind of so when he was inside the ideal environment to study yeah he studied the dollars and the inks and everything and there's water color painting you know fucking robber doing water color painting he's just he's just want papers and you know all this sort of stuff to experiment with it wasn't your dad to put young out by any chance was that it wasn't your dad to put young out by any chance was that i'm maybe indirectly planting seeds from a young age yeah i thought it was a safe outlet i'm guess uh-huh um yeah so so he's there and he's got this and he's going to battle it though he's very he's got very good legally i know know that by this time it's like when he's out he gets mates you know can you have a look at this case and all this because when he's inside there's a lot of legal cases and he does law as well and he's at lay hill he studied law and long law and he's got all these certificates and everything when he's in he always studies that's one thing he's a model prisoner studies his ass off make stacks of contacts that's what prisons fought like and it's that thing where he told me it was a college earlier and i think it is his college to him it was you go there to improve that's what you get to prison for and and you'll do this in this sentence except he's going to stay at winson green with a lot of irish and that ties in because the people have done him with a serious regional crime squad you know the west midlands people they're absolutely crooked they fit up a lot of the irish and they've done his case and he says they've done the same thing on is when you go to all the you know the police notes they're all fucking back dated and bits added and you know switch this round and switch that round and there's all that sort of thing going on so he says that well i'm going to get this thrown out so that'd be another reason why he's not going to give up the plates so he there's a long period towards trial trial eventually comes it goes on for about five months and a month from the end it's going really well except he's missed something you know when you when you write a piece of paper and you press down below it leaves a slight impression doesn't it and he realized they've got some evidence and when they do a test on it it's going to come up come up what he's written so in front of his lawyers he grabs this and he puts it into my mouth and he swallows it and of course at that point they've got to step down because they've just they've seen him do it and so that point they step down and he represents himself for the last month and he does all the he does all the cross examination and everything and does his summary and all that and does it work very well apparently but he gets guilty and he gets eleven and a half years and they just tells him he's really intelligent and everything but he's still giving him eleven and a half years he's got two years for contempt of court you know this pervert and the course of justice because he swallowed this bit of paper and he gets nine years for the counterfeit and they never get the plates back so at that point he goes back to Winston Green finishes with some legal cases doing further in mate some of the Irish there and then he kind of basically I think he I think he ends up might be Featherstone or no Whitemore he goes to Whitemore Cate and by that point I'm by the time he's done that I'm about 20 I'm working at a place called Ambulamation in London it's a animation still Spielberg's animation studio in Acton I'm working out there and I think if folks say this it seems I mean this big company but it seems really insignificant because he's got done for this and just to go work for so I always felt working for someone was somehow I was felt a bit shit about it to be honest I had a great job but from a dad you work for yourself and you know what I mean you create stuff so in the couple of months of him doing that I kind of quit my job and I went back and I started this trying to get an animation studio going and during the whole period that he'd be serving this sense of the count but that's what I would be doing I'll be trying to I suppose kind of make make it back I suppose trying to build up this animation studio and I'll do it in car then go to Birmingham then go to London do TV ads and all that you know keep updating him nearly made some major breakthroughs when you get like a million pound deal for something because that's kind of what I wanted to achieve but all the time he's kind of doing his sentence making contacts and I don't really know the details of what he's doing I still visit him occasionally I'll get in the shit the odd time he helps me out business wise with a bank and everything because he's good at that sort of stuff but I don't realize while he's inside he's kind of starting in the drug game slowly starting to build up I think at whitemore he's a cat a prisoner and he gets the cleaning job on the visitors room and there's tampax machines and he gets some of the female visitors to come in and start putting nine bars in the tampax machine then after all the visitors go he goes and gets the nine bars so he starts doing things like that just starts building up and by the time he gets to there like a he goes to his cat B cat C but each time he's getting stronger and bigger and by time get to cat T it's really a party you know it's like enough they used to call this place the offer license I'm in London at the time and I don't see him that much because like I said it's just he's moving around a lot and I've been moving around a lot and then all of a sudden he phones me one day he's on home leave and I think I only get the call because I've been avoiding I've been I've been dead at the time and if you know pick up the phone he's like well why the fuck ain't you answering your phone and I'm like you know I've been on the tube or you know so you know I'm back at the weekend you want to come over with your brother and so I'm going to start getting to know him all over again because up to that point it's been a little bit mixed to be honest because it's is this incredible businessman you go visit absolute charm and brilliant but then I hear I heard a lot of things over the years that weren't that great which were a lot of it to do with guns you know like moving guns and relatives finding guns well I think my cousin Neil he found like a hanging in the back of the wardrobe and then the guns and the steps at their house and then there was transporting guns things to do the IRA and then one of his friends was on about it when he was younger he had kneecapping people like when people have grasped he'd been involved in a few things like that you know kind of nasty stuff and I asked him about this when he was inside I just wrote and I thought well you know what's all this didn't didn't matter about the prison sentence so I just wanted to get a reaction out of him and he just says look when you're older you'll understand but a lot of it's crap what you're being told and so by the time he's gets on like 26 and he's been released again he's in the drug game it's a case of a start you know starting over I really need to get to know him again and give him a fair shout because by this point I'm like 26 and I realize the world's not an idealistic place it's very difficult you know you kind of work and work you don't always get what you want and that's just the way the world is and we're all kind of flawed and so I kind of drop my standards a bit and start real I know you got stuck accepting how he is because it's part of growing up at the end of the day how hard is it for you though that your dad always in and out your life and then just showing up out the blue like it must have fucked with your own emotions especially you've got a positive living you've got a like you're not doing bad stuff you're not in the family business yet you're just doing you like how hard is that for you that to then still have a contact with your dad even though you know what you're doing was wrong it's kind of an emotion the period where he went long life and that was the difficult period when he was laying here that was great my brother it might be more difficult because he was older he knew what was going on I didn't when we went to long life that was really unpleasant because you realize how isolated you are and how much you were lying on money and how difficult it was for me mom as well and how difficult it was for me brother a lot of stigma and that and the only way you get through those periods they're quite dark periods it's just denial really you just this understanding where you just think well things aren't too bad you know it's all you've ever known so you're not going to compare it too much other people might know you know fucking poor days you know they but to us it was normal so do you think your dad talked down that life a lot talked down the that life especially to his son like just because he was such a smooth charismatic character yeah it was just a normal life but obviously you know now the destruction it causes like do you think he played it down a bit I think he yeah he did because it was that kind of old school keeping it in your own environment he was dealing naturally with villains he never it's like if you go involved in the evening it was never off ordinary people it was that old school you'd rob from factories and stuff and you take lorries and stuff you don't rob off what you ordinary people it's kind of I mean if he comes in here and he met you and he was struggling he'd be like all you know you need a car I've got a spare car if you want it and it would be often to do your favors he did that wherever you went you know ordinary people he was absolutely that's the way he was his his thing was always authorities and institutions and morals back near there yeah it's changed days now it's changed days now with people like the villains and that now it's everything's too many grasses everybody hating on each other turning on each other back stabbing like back near they think that even though they were still doing all there was more respect for your elders your parents like kids women like now yeah just look a young girl in Liverpool who's just been shot there nine years old do you know what I mean you mean either that stuff and I said I mean we're gonna hear that stuff a little later but back then his old his old area that would there were all the criminals could consider themselves to be business people and that's how they saw themselves that's how they behaved and that's why it was so easy to believe that when I was a kid because that's the way they acted all the stuff they go off and rob banks and stuff it was always you know higher rational as they kept it to themselves keep your mouth shut no one grasses and if you grass you really you know and the grass in being an informed income was a big problem later especially when you go to the little server did ever tell you keep one a straight narrow stick to your art stick to your animation or the tcu as becoming part of the family business um I think he was very people would later tell me always proud of what you're doing you work for Spielberg and he's you know he's very proud never told me to my face he never he never said anything like that I just assumed in his world you know a grown man drawing for a living is something it's not a real job and I kind of always felt he kind of thought like that to him a real job was you get something you make something you sell something you take a bit of daring you know and to him that's what work was really you really put yourself out there out there and quite fearless um so when I get to 26 I'm really I'm really struggling financially and you know kind of up here one minute down there the next I'm very much like that and then he suddenly appears he's on home leaves over and eating with his new wife this is his wife number three and I gotta say him and he's he's kind of like how I should be he's kind of real buzzing you're like a 20 year old got loads of energy got plenty of money there's all cigarettes leaves and cigarettes all around the house you know he's kind of that's because that's what he's doing he's selling cigarettes he's got here he's got his mobile phones he's got all these sim cards keep switching the sims and he's doing all these deals and people have to come near the house because he ain't got time he's on the home leave so he's only got a couple of days so people having to come and drop money for him and he's then the money comes in then someone visits he gives them money for stuff and helping them out and everything you think he's the inmate people should be helping him but it's either way around he's doing exceptionally well and on the phone it's all cigarettes so as you know you've got 20 embassies and I've got 10 super kings will sort all this out and just seems like cigarettes and my brother thought that I thought that you don't realize it's a code they're using and that's how it works at that age because I'm 26 I'm still a bit naive that way so he comes out and he like I said is this really young fella and I start to change my ideas a little bit I'm still working in London and I start coming up every weekend once it gets released and every time I come up he's got a new car and a new worker a new place new wife yeah a new girlfriend he always had a few girlfriends I guess that's gonna talk a bit again used to but yeah each weekend you come back and you think fucks it's you know I'm kind of grafting I'm doing straight whatever he's doing he's making all the money that I dreamt of making when I was younger and what he was making when he and he seems to be doing it so easily and it's like I said yeah I go there and every time you know you want to come off for only a couple of hours a few meets go see a few people we're popped by all these different apartments and you know you're driving your car you go to one place park up walk a street away get another car drive off you know there's all surveillance savvy and everything still a bit more familiar with that by that point but it's just an expansion every weekend and then gradually I decide I'm coming back to Cobb I'm in London I'm really struggling so I come back to Cobb get a little studio there intended to stay on the straight and narrow but then he'll drop by and he'll like you know your filing cabinet you mind if I leave some stuff with you and he'll just leave it come back next day 100 quid just thanks you know and I was like no no you need me dad and everything no no you just keep it and he's like that you know just favours all the time and he starts doing that and he says you know just don't look watch your prints and everything that's what I do and then one day I'll just go and have a look and it's kind of white bars you know like bass I'm fed him in bass I thought I didn't know what it was I thought yeah at the time I think you know you watch you watch Al Pacino it's not it's all powder you think well I was fucking solid what's okay it's not none of my business he's holding up for someone just none of my business new cigarettes anyway so then he starts there you know you're doing anything this evening you want to just pick pop the bride I've got someone with some money down there just pop down yeah okay I'll pop down I get 30 grand bring it back the fucking 30 grand can't wait you to get it back to him you know he's like no just just keep it for the minute get it in the morning it's so casual about it and he's got drivers doing this sort of thing going around the country and at this time I think he's doing cigarettes but I start doing each evening I start just doing go collecting money for him and then these short one night they're shorter drivers because loads of drivers is always getting short he just asked me if I can just go down to Dunstable he just said he got some cigarettes to drop and then he says you know loads of boys and just a lot of cigarettes you know it's a hash and it's you know it's there you know I'm fetching them in these are hashed there's just some nine bars you just put them there stick them into your seat and just drop them down to the fella and let them take him give him 10 minutes then phone back it bring the money for you I did that that was the first drop I did and after that point I was at the studio and each evening just ring you know you up to anything you want to go driving and I'll just go off driving and gradually that's how I started working for him but the better thing after that was I started driving where I was to be like a chauffeur because he never drove himself because he's got to be hands-free for the phone so I started driving him every day as well and during that period that's when he started schooling me what he was doing so I was aware of the surveillance and all this sort of stuff but then he starts teaching me all the fine details and everything and it's like the more you know the safer you'll be anyway so you might as well and I like being around him he's been away for like last 15 years he's been away 13 years so I think you know it's a weird sort of way I'm spending me I spend a time with dad sort of thing you know like you would when you're and you think you're kind of making up for last time except it's all a little bit different you're kind of you're going to drug meats and stuff and you're grabbing money and everything and you're doing surveillance and you're burying stuff and then you're going back and getting it a few days later and it's all the unusual stuff and then he's off doing mixes now and then which I don't want any part of because that's you know that's that's like that breaking bad where people come in when you're doing a mixture really fucked so so there's a variety of stuff that's going on and there's loads of workers and there's something happening every week and you meet all these different villains from all the different cities it's very well connected so we've got Brighton and London and Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire and some of the figures are dead now and some are still about but it's just massive massive money that you're dealing with so every week it's a few hundred grand I'd be collecting and then you've got other drives as well a lot of them doing drop-offs and it varies from week to week like I said I'd have weeks where I don't earn less money but I'd be driving them and I'd be spending time with them would be burying stuff and all this sort of thing that was that was kind of fun in a strange sort of way so yeah I'm kind of nostalgic about it in a strange way is that when it becomes the attraction like you're getting to spend time with your dad just starting to make a bit of money listen dropping all gear in that and if you're burying money I'm digging up holes to bury stashes like it's a turn on you feel as if if you're watching the films with your dad and you feel as if you're in part of a movie like as it becomes such an attraction that you actually forgot what you were doing you're just so concentrated on the buzz of it and so I don't really have that kind of buzz I think he did but I was kind of I was very cautious and I thought the course more cautiously I'm the safer I am on this but I thought I just kind of like the business side of it my brother like the practical side but I liked all the you know when you go to meetings and you realize how he's negotiating and how the pain now it's all worked out and how he sells and I kind of liked all that sort of so and then the legal stuff we'd be doing and all the surveillance stuff so intellectual I looked I liked all that side that's what I like the actual bit of the bowing the the unfet I never liked the unfet because it you know occasionally you go place and it's a lot I've got a I've got two keys I've got to make it three keys go in the other room I'm going to need to do a quick mix and sort and you say for folks I ain't doing this again and there was little instances like that where there were little signs of me distancing off but the big thing was like any rational person once you got something to lose because at the start I didn't have anything to lose after a while you got something to lose you think well why am I doing this bit because this is real risky if you get caught with unfet you've got five years you know just driving it so I start to back off from that I think well I won't do that anymore I'll just do the hash and the and the paperwork you know what the money and because at the at the time I met Sammy who's my future wife and I think I've got some good going now I've got money got a missus got place I don't need to be risking it all for a bit of unfet so I'll stop doing that but then I start thinking about the hash as well I thought well paperwork there's almost no risk with paperwork so I start retreating from the hash a little bit as well and she's got loads of other drivers anyway so and I'm still driving him occasionally and we go abroad and everything he get once he's got his license back there's loads of trips abroad everyone's gonna pass every driver's gonna have a passport and basically you're going to Spain and Amsterdam quite frequently and you've got to drive everywhere because you can't leave records on flights so there's a lot of driving and but again I'm going abroad and my dad never went on holiday with him and this is like a kind of like a holiday you know you go off you can see some meetings you come back and then good start arriving and he was always hopping like Spain to Holland to here because he was doing the he was doing the importation but it was also doing the buying and supply and he was wearing three hats which is a lot to do and you can't do it for very long really really needed like a family or you know which I mean you might look to me but that wasn't my sort of thing so for about a year or two he goes really really big and there's like hundreds of thousands every and so you add up that's like a millions every year like 10 15 million each year but then there's a slight change comes about because up to then we've had surveillance on us and it's kind of a little bit like a game because it's a car there that's probably them you know and initially I think when you get surveillance on you're supposed to break your pattern he's like no you carry on as normal the point is they watch they find the thing they have to move off because they've only got certain budgets they're going to stay on you like six eight weeks so that's all you do is wait them out really except then someone goes over a speed bump and a tracker drops off and you think oh fuck they're coming a bit closer that's not good that's not good is it and so we start worrying about trackers when I'm just constantly check the vehicles he's always got one mechanic there's all the vehicles because you don't take it out to outsiders because they end up putting trackers on your cars but obviously if someone's put a tracker on a car they've got to the car it's a chance they've got into the compound in which case they might be in the caravans they might be bugs in the caravans and stuff because that's they used to use caravans as offices because if one was ever bugged you just get rid of the caravan put a new one in it was quite a flexible system and but once you start seeing the trackers and you think oh great this isn't this isn't good and then we're going to watch caravans we're talking because we think we're bugged and then one day in in the January it changes a little bit there's a there's a power cut well this time he's living in this muse it's kind of like a he's got gates he's got he's got dogs he's got cameras like a you know like Al Pacino is a bit like that but kind of a commentary version and there's a power cut and two guys from next door they're just moved in they come around not the gates you know you've got the candles the fucking the electric's gone all that oh right you know the kind of blokey guys sort of you know so he kind of lets them in there's a macopatine everything with what his partner does and they chat for a while because there's no electric nothing you go on the end of talking these guys one of them's out on license the real dodgy peep from Birmingham you know you know maybe you can do some stuff together yeah yeah that'd be great you know and then the gov electric comes off they go off back and you know mates apparently but as soon as they leave my dad says fucking undercover isn't they with you know just matter of fact he knows they're undercover I find out a few days later and at that point I think for fuck's sake really this is the time we need to break the pattern and just you know not just pack up but just just move off just change everything but he's like no well you know just wait him out we're kind of he knew the landlord next to it now I'll get my victim I'll get him shifted and that was his attitude to it my attitude at the time was no things are going great for me now I've got my money I've got my missus we just booked two tickets for Thailand two months away so I've got two months for these undercover officers they're going to be about and we've got all these like several occasional car and that sort of thing but I do get the feeling I'm never going to make it to this trip to Thailand and at this time he's got a place on Paul road it's a massive container unit and that's his base and it's kind of a lot of chaos there's all these container units all the roads and then eating a hiring units you know they just go and store their stolen fags and jacket whatever they're what they're dealing with and that's got three caravans and there is offices it always have a clean office and he wasn't bugged and that's where he'd work from and the other two maybe bugged that one's just keep out without just using it for storage and but then one day these two undercover guys come you know hiring container unit so all of a sudden they start coming every day and you think fuck they're getting really close here and then one day a helicopter goes over and they're kind of checking out you know the the area because they want to see what your exit points are they're going to come in for a raid what's going to happen and they're getting really close and I've got these tickets for Thailand and I'm I'm just keeping my car away from the place trying to stay off the surveillance there's cameras from the place opposite and my dad said don't worry I'll sort it and he just puts some containers on top of each other to block the view of the cameras but they're getting really close it's getting a bit claustrophobic but the expectation is on to carry on working because you can't boss out what it's like you know there's a group here you've been working together for so long you can't really say well you know I think I'll I'll leave you to it sort of thing it's a bit cowardly so you've got to stick with it but you can just reduce your workload and what you're doing and slowly I do that and then eventually well the day before I kind of get off the Thailand I just I said say to him look you've got to just say to these guys look we know who you are can you just fuck off and leave us alone because it's just getting so close now and he said no you know worries I've got it all he's always got it all sorted so I head off to Thailand so only when the flight goes off I'm confident I'm going because up to that point I'm expecting to get out like you think you're going in and some couple of officers come on it's a shit and but I go and I think wow I'm fucking away now and then three weeks later I've got an inclinor phone home you know what's happening what's happening mom goes like they've all been arrested he said all of them your brother everybody it's all been over the papers your dad sees he's in prison at the minute and I think shit and she says oh he said your brother they got your brother got him here the police had come for you and when they came you know you weren't here so your brother walked in at that moment they arrested him they said you want to listen to this one so they're all it really was fucked and I'm in Thailand I'm thinking well I ain't going home I'm staying here I'm like check out the hotel we're moving to my wife's village I thought I'm gonna be a farmer I'm going to stay here till this passes if it takes a year or two I'm stopping here I ain't going anywhere so initially that's what I do but I start phoning home to get an idea of what's going on get the period the surveillance was on and what's part of the case and I think okay I'm only there for three weeks at that because the other three weeks I'm in a different country at the most critical bit and it's during those three weeks where it all kind of kicks off and it late works out my dad was playing this freaking cat and mouse he knew there were officers and they kept trying to sell him stuff and he kept toying with them now and you know frustrating them it was almost like a hobby he had he's like he's gonna fuck off these officers by just yeah maybe I can maybe I can't and do you think that was your dad's downfall though look he's a very intelligent man but again too risky because he's so much anti authority where like you know yeah you feel it when the coppers are watching you if they're bugging you if you're getting surveillance you just know you've got a sense yeah you've got a feeling that somebody's he kind of like that yeah he really liked the first thing that was his downfall though are you got a buzz out of it any rational person was like yeah because you try and play games you only make one mistake you're done yeah I mean and that's all it takes like sometimes people can think they're a bit too clever yeah I think that was kind of his thing he was it was his battle of wits and I think somebody was it done a lot of time and it's like you know I fucking I should have beat you before and this time I've really got you on the hook I'm just gonna play with you and that's what you seem to be doing it was like the one towards the end they they did give references you know they put the the informants give references and there were shit references because I remember I was there when they were doing the references and one of the guy wouldn't he'd gone offside he couldn't back up and the other guy was so hesitant it was clear they weren't happy with these they're putting these officers forward and then later after I'd gone he he was doing a deal with them I've forgotten what it was over I didn't try to send them a pill machine and he was like okay then and he got a new caravan from me and he said well we're going there and he did the body search on each of them you get to the point where you're doing body search is that thorough and it turned out one had a bug in the heel of his shoe so they still got him but they didn't catch him on saying anything but that's how silly it was really getting towards the end where he's just you know I know that you know and and in the end he sets up a phony cigarette deal when he's on the phone he's on about he's got a shipment coming in and it's not a shipment at all it's a bit of a there's a bit of a squeeze and all the helicopters and everything they all came in and got him that way and it turned out it was to do with cigarettes that were stored in the container unit next door which would get him off it but later so I come back from Thailand after a short while anyway probably a few months I've got the all clear and at that point I changed my name to Wilson anyway because I've saw this coming and I think I've changed it by default originally I'm shipply like my dad he was originally shipply and he changed it to Spencer this time I change it to Wilson and I'm going to start afresh I'm not going to do the animation I don't know what I'm going to do but I do go visit him after all once it's clear and I'm sure I'm not part of this conspiracy I'll go visit him he's Dan at Woodhill he's a double A cat because if he's an escape risk and when he's been to court there's all up and down police on the bridges and all that's but really over the top but he's a double A cat and you have to go see him in double A cat you've got the freaking lit readers and stuff so you haven't to talk behind your hands like this and trying to say what the fuck did you did you not listen to me that last day when we sat in the car and I told you you didn't listen did you and he's like well it's all done now you know look forward at everything we've got this case and we've got to beat it so for the next 20 months he's on remand five less four five months is a court case do everything we can to help him during that period lots of problems on the outside my brother feels the brunt of it it's like when when he was on remand because when you go down you get caught the people you owe money think oh fucking great this is I ain't gonna hang off the paint you know but the people now the people who you're wearing money they start screaming they really want their money and there's they figured there's a queue so that was all on my brother he got all the harassment all the phone calls and then at Woodhill he was picked up outside they took him for a drive with a gun on his kneecaps just to just to scare him my dad was like yeah well they scared you but you know there's nothing to worry about and he was like that with anything you know nothing to worry about take care I'll have a word and that's what he'd do but yeah there's a lot of shit there but I missed quite a bit of it but then a year later we've kind of at Birmingham Court and it's kind of like I said we've got this long trial we've got great barristers there what theirs aren't too great at all um I go to for some days of the trial watch it all and develop people keep ringing in what's happening it takes forever this trial because it's conspiracy it's all these little bits and you know they haven't actually gotten doing anything they've got almost no drugs in the case whatsoever so ever they've got this code they can't break and it's obvious code but they can't break it there's no evidence that so it really rumbles on and in the end with the second jury which are kind of multicultural jury very working class he ends up getting an acuity which really fucks the police off um in the court he gets out I mean I'm one of the few people in the public gallery at the time he gets out the gets out the box all done shakes the hands of all the jurors and his defence team and he strives across the court and there's a chief superintendent Blair there's a headed this operation and he spent millions on this and my dad holds out his hand to him like it's a and Blair just looks at him and he just now he storms out and all the all the detectives follow him and all the journalists follow him he's really fucked up my dad's my dad's pissed off because he's like he's lost he's a sole loser you know we've been fighting this for that long he's just lost a big game and he's just so loose he's really pissed off about that and we always always would be a no no respect for Blair after that um and then we go over to Yeats's wine bar this is kind of significant because what comes later um we go over there all the jurors because you know every court's got put in there by all the jurors go over to the over to Yeats's and we're all talking to him all the barristers they disappear because it's all legal ethics and everything when my dad decides look you've kind of saved my life here when you verdict that fellow over there one of you like jury number nine he goes to an Indian restaurant well let's have a party and he organizes this party for all the jurors and I go with my family and my brother and all that and we have this big party and then a few weeks later um crime squad have heard about it and they go around arresting all the jurors and they think it's been you know the jury was knobbled yeah so we kind of that's a lot of aggravation for a while and by this time he's out and day one it's kind of it's kind of right I need fresh phones need to get working you know but I've not been earning for 20 months um and that's what he does go straight back to it all like ground old day pretty much exactly the same you know start setting up all the bases in the different areas start getting fresh cars uh get fresh work as if you can get the best of the old ones uh it just starts over what you're thinking then you're not thinking for the fuck's sake mind give it a rest like as much as you're still making money you're still always getting caught I'm just thinking you've just got this massive result because you're looking at 15 and you've got this massive result and you're just like it's not even like you've waited a few days you've kind of the next day you've got fresh phones on you're phoning around you're making big promises on stuff that you're going to get in uh you're trying to get your passport back um you just want everything and he's like well everything's gone to rack and room that I've got to get working I've got everything back together I've got to get earning and it treats it like it's his job it says role that you know this is what he's got to do I so he goes straight back to it uh by this at this point I've not for 20 months so very little artwork come in so I start driving for him again I really is like ground old day because I think this is and quite quickly he gets some surveillance on him uh and at that point I just pull away I think now this this isn't for me this is uh this is just going one way again already I can see it already so I back off he carries on he rebuilds everything and my daughter's born about that sort of time that's one of the reasons I backed off I thought I'm gonna be a father myself I don't want it like when I was a kid and my dad's you know I want it it's all right for her and everything so he just rebuilds everything he spends about a million quid with about six months on you know infrastructure he's got all these boats back in everything he used to use the canal boats and all that sort of thing and he's got all these premises he spends on everything and he's way too generous and he's got stacks of workers again they're bringing stuff in and now they're about to go up the scale because everything's paid for and now it's a pure profit uh and then they're working on the canal boats and one of the workers spots a surveillance camera in a tree real small one like really advanced for the time and instead of leaving it which is what you're supposed to do and just report it can you know they're there you don't want to the worker pulls it down and immediately it tells the police well we know you there's an operation on which means they're coming very soon like within 24 hours going to be raids he finds me up and he says you need to have a clear out get everything out and I'm like what do you mean clear out I haven't been doing anything this one's nothing to do with me but he says no he says they're coming so I'm going to be off soon but he doesn't quite make it the next day he gets arrested he hasn't quite cleared everything he ends up back at Woodhill all over again it really is just the same he's back at Woodhill same visits but in this instance he spots on you know the arrest year that he's they've remanded him for 60 days but they've made a mistake because they've missed the bank holiday out so there's one day they've missed and on that one day he goes in with his lawyers and puts bail up and said I want released and they're releasing and then he's released and gets 24 hours surveillance on him because they were they made a big big mistake I see him the last few times they're driving for a few days here and there always got a police car behind us and going around just tying up the loose ends and then one day just disappears he goes up north starts working with people up north but the police are everywhere for him at that point and you can't I can't really go see him because it's they want everybody they want everybody yes a very intense that is and also it's a bit like the plates it takes the camera and the communicating for the lawyers but you won't give the camera back and it's a this advanced thing they really want back it's been like the thing in the wire you know it's that wire series with the camera the desperate it's a bit like that they desperately want this camera back and he won't give it on but it's that thing where he's got that thing with him it goes way back where if he can piss them off he will because he thinks that's that's the right thing to do so yeah he goes up north and then he disappears he goes off to Amsterdam after that he's he works with a group up there becomes part of that group for a while and then goes to Amsterdam and then he sets up into a new name over there called English John Reverend he always had different names he was always John Pat Steve always changed the names whenever there was a police raid somewhere everyone's got to change the names you got to change your phones change your names and all that sort of stuff and he'd go John Pat and now I'm this and then I'm Steve and I think you're not a freaking Steve it's some name suit and some don't and at that point a lot of the work you start calling him the old man because he was a bit older than the rest of us isn't his 40s early 50s by that point and it was an easy way of just having a vague nickname for him without him to keep chopping names all the time so that's why we called him the old man up because he was old it was just because of that but he ends up in Amsterdam and over there is known as English John and he knows all the Dutch mafia and all the Dutch bikers and all over there and he's doing the supply end over that way and then gradually I'll start seeing him again I go over take his ex's money over and then one day I'll go and he's got this he's got a meet with his real plastic gangsters they are it's all you know they've got the fancy cars and they've got they've got real henchmen like real massive people and that's really obvious what they are and it's because they they want to supply coke and my dad doesn't want to get involved in that he's never dealt with heroin and he didn't want to deal in coke even right heroin he says he saw it with you know the guys inside taken he said absolutely disruptive he said we wouldn't have anything to do with heroin at all everyone I've known who's said that about they said yeah couldn't get you could you know ones who did deal with it couldn't get him to deal with it he wouldn't deal with it but he was reluctant to deal with coke as well because he thought the risk was high you know when you have a coke operation the budgets for those because it's cat a they go on longer more intense and if you get caught you get like 20 years because if you're doing it with hash it will you know i'm fed him in I was at the team was it not a class B what the coke hash I think oh the hash that's always been in here but the hash it varied you know when Blair come in yeah you have the cigarettes at one point it was just as risky to do cigarettes it was to do hash yeah because they played around with it cut seeing that sort of thing but the coke he felt the same on the key just thought no the police operations are too big when they're going for coke he said the notes down here for six to eight weeks they just stay on you yeah yeah it says not worth the risk so we were over there and he had this meet with him and we went to this big bloody building and before I go they said look I don't like the look at this just get off side so if there's any sort of bugs on you you're not party to anything I went into there and there's a big massive one room just one big massive room and all I can do is go to the far corner they're at the board room at the other end and they're talking and these dutch using the real names they say so Tony you know when can you get some coke and all this sort of and the word coke is just bouncing around the room and I'm like Christ this is really bad you've got these these got these massive guys on the door you know they look like they've got guns they may not but it's just very very plastic it's not after we leave it it's quite fuming and at that point when we leave he gets a phone call and it's a guy from up north called David Royal it's drug dealer and a few months ago we'd stole about 240 grand from Portsmouth there was a handover at Portsmouth he'd sold that he stole that and my dad had been told telling him you lot you're gonna have to give it back because you're gonna have real problems you don't give me that money back and he was phoning up to say look I've got your money I'm in Amsterdam I'm gonna give you money back now and that opened up this other episode to follow yeah people will get shot yeah dad get shot as well yeah yeah that's how that come about uh initially initially when this money was to go abroad I was meant to be taking it but I got a substituted last minute by an Irish fellow which was fortunate you got robbed at gunpoint and that's how this royal got the money um but once he knew my dad was uh he only knew what it was to do with like the Irish he had to face up to the fact if you are the hand it back or you're gonna get wiped out essentially because we'll come after all of you so we looked and he said a lot I'm gonna give the money back so I spent 30 grand of it but the hundred and I my dad said no I have the 30 I don't care about that just give us the money back so they're gonna arrange this me I go back to the UK before he goes I warned him I said look this don't sound right it's been making these promises for weeks now are you sure this is he said no worries you know he's not gonna mess with me about it's very confident and like I said he was always confident and then it's um I think it's like the Friday or Saturday morning I think it was okay a phone call off him and for the first time his voice is very faint and it's like you know I've been in an accident and yeah I'm in a bit of a bad way can you get over and immediately I think it's to do with these guys who've been doing this coke thing maybe something's gone wrong there because it's pissed them off by refusing to deal with them and so I said yeah okay and he asked me to bring two other people over so I head over to Amsterdam and go to the safe house on the north side in our plane and then knock the door and the guy cuts several be answers a lot next lifer he's there he's one of my dad's workers they're reliable guy and he says like you don't you dad's been shot he's been shot in the chest and he says in a bad way we don't know if he's going to pull through um so and then we just walk into the room it's all dark and he's just lying there on it okay stretch your bed a few bandages and that and then he kind of starts to come round and he says you're right there and you know how was the drive he said he'd check for trackers on your car you know you left your phone yeah and I'm like yeah yeah I've done all the usual stuff and he's like yeah yeah I've had a bit of a problem he's really understated as always and I was just kind of wordless his girlfriend's there and she's like she's pretty she's only been with him for a few years and stuff that's happened within a few years um I'm like Christ what's so I'm going to speak to so he explained everything happened how it all gone wrong it gone it met this guy Royal drove down to the docks and Royal had his two of his guys there you know looking masks and handguns and they kind of tried to get my dad out of the car but we did a little nine millimeter with him as he come from the car he kind of pulled it start to pull it out and the guy who had the gun on him on his you know his chest at that point just panicked and shot and he just kind of shot him back and I mean a film usually you kind of go down you think you're shot but he didn't he just kind of steadied himself then he completely pulling his gun out and then just started firing there's three guys one went down one ran for it and Royal he was the in the passenger at the time he comes around the car I'm gonna just seize him he just raises again just shoots him in the chest Royal goes down and then a couple of minutes he's dead and at that point my dad just leans on the on the bonnet of the car leaves a massive you know palm print and just collects himself tries to figure out where the hell do go now he's been I'm not sure how much pain he's feeling but he's just real real hit and he just works out where the nearest safe house is which turns out a Dutch bar where he first worked there when he went to Amsterdam the mafia you know the Dutch mafia were in control of it and he heads for there they kind of get a vet out to him get him checked over later get a doctor from Switzerland but by the time I get there it's just you're gonna have to wait and see that 24 hours we're gonna see if he's gonna pull through one up so he's got all these high on all these tablets but he starts taking them when I get there and we just have this quiet evening no phones because you know the phones have been all been dumped and we've just got 24 hours to see if he's gonna pull through or not and he lies on the stretcher bed so Doc's taking his meds and then starts telling us the story about what happened at the docks and it's good it's a good story tell it he kind of tells it very very dramatic and the room's all dark and he's just one lamp on and it's he tells the story and I kind of put them the first chapter of the book it's pretty much how they explained it all in fine detail and how he got into the car and he could smell it was a you know it was a new car because you could just smell that it's a rental and if you up to someone use a rental sometimes and then the guy he didn't he didn't know where everything was on the car he's really confused couldn't read the signs in the center of the house that it was just yeah so I kind of like so first chapter is just my dad talking that's so he's the guy Roy who stole the yeah the money from your dad had the meeting from your with your dad and then they try to kill your dad yeah just straightforward self-defense pretty it's justifiable but the fact is he didn't even hesitate he's just kind of you're dead sort of thing but your dad's stolen a run from the UK yeah he's been shot and then killed a guy like what happens there then um well by the following morning he's started to pull he's got through the worst of it and all through that night I'm thinking fuck um that's private doctors isn't it yeah it's just there that Dutch bring these doctors in you can't go to hospital because like he's on the run and it's a gunshot wound and it's there's just problem after problem there um so the following day he starts to pull through and he starts to he's sitting up and he's starting he's a shave and he starts getting ready and I think well you know you just you know be shot and it's like no we've got we've got to see people need people to start coming around because if people think I'm shot and I'm gone then all shit's gonna you know because um people are owed money people expecting stuff there's gonna be problems if I they can't see I'm okay so all these Dutch people start coming around and he starts you know finishing these deals but he's not standing up he's lying on a stretcher bed still and they all come in and a few of them are armed I'm told I didn't know it's BT told me a few weeks back and it's all real serious heavy Dutch people come and they all come up to sell these deals for supplies and everything and that's what they do all day and at that point it's one of those days where I just think there's something all right this is freaking I've only been back with him like four or five years since he's been out and it's just so much has happened and it's just doesn't seem to learn from anything it's just relentless there's never a point like you said when he even after the day you got the not guilty he didn't even chill out it's just and this is the same thing day after the shoot he's not even chilling out it's like no I've got to get things moving gotta get fresh phones and then we'll get down to Spain and then everything will be all right then and that's sure and I thought that's what eventually happens he goes down to Spain I'll come back to the UK and uh things just start over in Spain again it's just straight back to it it's just no break the sad existence is we're on it when you're spending 10 years here 11 years here like remand for two years even that a remand for two years is a five-year stretch yeah look at that man you don't you don't even get compensation there's just no pluses on it really apart from you've had a victory overall it's just the buzz it's just a constant chase the constant buzz try to get one over the 40s like when you've got kids as well like it's sad like people get so caught up in that life and try to beat the system because when it all when you boil it all down will never beats it I definitely I think they get satisfaction in this in the victories because you get caught for like the 1% don't you just games yeah the 99% you've got that when you sit and you say I got away with all that I made all that and they never took from me it's just that fucker at the end that got me but I'm going to learn from that and that's what it'd always be like that it always just learning combat better so he ends up back in a place called cast of the fells near Barcelona again I start going out there and you know drop his exes money and stuff and he starts mostly dealing in the hash at that point but things are changing in the market because people start home growing over here and all of a sudden the quality of the hash there's problems with that places drop yes the market's slowly changing he's a bit slow on to kind of go with that because the inevitable move is to move to something else so what do you move to well it'd be coke which I don't think at the time he wanted to move to so for a while he does the smuggling thing he buys a body ship out there for nearly a quarter million pound and but there's problems with that and with the Spanish guy who sold it to him that creates all sorts of problems and then after that they're doing ribboats across the med so and then ribboats down at Gibraltar there's just a lot going on but then one day we asked one day we go to Madrid this is the kind of the break point for me we go to Madrid and by this point it's been on the run for about three years all sorts of problems quite a few deaths actually because when you when you're a villain on the run it you're easy to rob and you're easy not to pay you know so there's all these other problems with the villains a lot of politics there and so we go to Madrid one day to meet a guy called the Chinaman who wants to invest and he wants to invest in the new coke from South America and I'm very aware my dad's got these South American contacts like you know Venezuela and Colombia and it sounds like that's where that's why he's not worried about the hash in it because he's he's moving on and at that point it I kind of no I'm not doing this this is not for me so I kind of break off at it we don't fall out but he understands I don't go with this at all I'm not going to look like party to that so I'll stop going over so much I still take his messages and do stuff but not I kind of we kind of go see things differently and he's all right with that but then some months later don't hear off him for a few days people phoning him where the hell's your dad we're not heard off him and then I get a letter coming through and he's a prison down in there Al Horan you know Malaga been arrested with three tonne of hash so he's under there another false name called Graham Penny which is the name he was using while he was on the run and he's looking at he's looking at I think seven years there it's five of them so he's got problems with that Graham Penny there's a guy on the outside trying to get him bail to get him out and they eventually get bail and all of them are going to be released except at the gates as they're being released my dad gets called back he said hold on a minute he's not allowed out the final gate he says you're kind of wanted for extradition you Tony Spencer he says you wanted for extradition to Holland you know for murder and so he's pulled back he's the only one who's kept there a few months later he gets seven years for the hash all the others have absconded on bail that's the deal in Spain you don't go back if you you know it's kind of an un-said rule sort of thing but he gets seven years gets sent to Val Demora and then they want him in Holland for this murder of David Roy which is going to be I suppose it's going to be a problem though he's complete self-defense and then I did that there's another killing as well that comes up and he gets accused with that it's real gets real complicated so for at that point I kind of a value he's kind of he's wanted in England for the conspiracy he's wanted in Holland for the murder questioned about another murder he's got seven years in Spain it looks about as bad as it could possibly be and at that point not a lot of people are really going to help because they're like commodity wise as a villain if you're about to come out your price goes up but if you're looking at life no one's going to help you out really you've got a few old school mates who might if you can find them but that's where he's stuck and at that point I try and do everything I can start raising his legal fees trying to get a trying to help with his appeal and that sort of thing and just doing my best by him really because at that point it's like I'm probably the last worker in the UK all the other people are over in Spain and that and so it's kind of just me and him at that point and so we start kind of working on that the one of the murder charges gets drops in Holland to get switched on to somebody else who later gets found guilty and he has to go to Holland in the end so that's where he goes it goes there gets extradited it has a trial by then we know all the evidence all the forensics we've got hold of all of them and he just adapts his evidence of that to say it was self-defense explains he's grabbed the gun off Roy only shot him with his gun he was his mate and everything it gets accepted gets not guilty and all of a sudden his price goes up a little bit he's just got to get back to Spain and finish his sentence and I said during that period our relationship starts to change a little bit why when he goes to Holland he cuts off contact with everybody because the Dutch are so sharp on surveillance all the everything will be recorded all the letters so he cuts off contact and once gets it's not guilty there's no crime agenda for us to discuss anymore because I'm like going to be really part of that so we start writing about other stuff and I'm kind of in my 30s then I need to start doing something I can't can't be driving for him and doing stuff with him all these years and I've got no I can't go back to art that's kind of it's all been replaced by computers so I start studying psychology and I do a bit of art in French and stuff he's studying languages at this time so he's doing all the law stuff so he's studying German and Dutch and still doing his Spanish and so we start studying talking about languages and all this sort of stuff and bit of psychology and then I send him from drawings about a project I want to do and to do with a drug smuggling ironically it's going to be a comic book it's the idea and he surprises me because he's quite okay with this it's like yeah yeah that would be fucking good though you know so we start corresponding over this last year with his sentence in Spain you know between Holland and Spain we start corresponding it's just like a father something we've got this project we're going to do but our relationship is really good it's not to do with crime anymore it's just this but crime is bubbling away in the background he's still sending me all these context that's accumulating a lot of them South American a lot of them Spanish and then eventually we get to the point where he's finished his sentence he's going to get released it's just whether he's going to get arrested when he gets back here for this conspiracy and going to put him on a flight and I go down to Heathrow and wait for him to come through he's delayed he doesn't come through straight away and it turns out they've kind of given him a lot of hassle coming in didn't get charged or anything but they just want to let him know you know welcome home is dispensary and all that sort of stuff and then there's also the thing he's had some medical problems you know there's good good bullet that's gone in it's a dumb dumb bullet it's all these little fragments around his lungs they keep getting infected so he's up to go to civilian hospitals a few times it's got that bad so by the time he's coming through I think he's going to be a bit of a steak because of all this medical stuff that's been going on as well but he comes through customs when he eventually does he says it's a fiddle he's got a beautiful tan he's been on a med diet for the last five or six years looks great and he says confidence same old smile you know happy go lucky as always dark sense to hear me and go back to the car getting the car and he says you got you got me a new fresh phone I said yeah it's in the dash he sets up his phone starts making some calls people start phoning my phone and immediately he's like by the time we get to the m1 he's setting up his first meeting it's like yeah we back up later we'll have a quick word and there's a lot to get on with and he's going to get back to it just casuals like how do you survive the dumb dumb bullet is that not when it actually it just starts wrecking shame like a pinball machine inside your body well some of it came out through the back and some of its spray cut some fragments got caught on the lungs it just missed the vital organs as it went through so a lot of it did get through but it's all these bits that stayed in um so there was the argument for getting out for a long time but when he knew he was going to go to holland if you take the evidence out you can have a problem when you get to holland so you have to keep it in him so one of the things when he went to holland then he did the x-rays they could see it inside and so when he said a lot I've been shot in the fucking chest by this they kind of matched all the forensics so the the the fragments actually got him off in holland they made it quite clear it was self-defense because once they know he's been shot in the chest they'd heard he'd been shot but they didn't know where it could have been the leg or anything but once they knew it was there it was clearly self-defense did they not get done for that not report the crime or like leaving the leaving the scene no he would have been crazed you know the adrenaline and everything it would just be and he was on the run from britain the thing is when he went on trial for that they didn't care that it was a drug dealer because the ditch were like all that drug stuff we don't care about that what we care about it's just this one incident we don't care if you Pablo Escobar the main thing is this shooting it's all we're interested in and that's the way they kind of see it they're kind of a mature way of looking at it I guess so we have no other problems in holland so he's got out again straight back out left the airport and he's straight back to what straight back originally I thought he can come back stay at ours okay you see this ain't gonna work but that's my knife I thought you know maybe he's going to knock this all on the head but when he's in the car he's doing his calls but he's going to stay at mine until he's kind of got sorted did you have a conversation with him to say look dad what the fuck are you doing like it's like it's just the same that it's not you'd like you say from a kid nothing ever changed prison back out of straight to work prison back out straight to work even getting older and then you're getting shortened in there's dead bodies and then you're talking about doing coke that everything's becoming more extreme like where does it end I guess if you've if you've done so many years if you go straight then you did those years for nothing I think you kind of thought they justified the future was this I think I've heard you mentioned this calm it's kind of there's a natural justice at work you've done all this time for a reason you know you did all those years for a reason it was to get better at what you do and to become smarter and then great rewards were like ahead it's always that faith in the future my dad never looked back that much and if you questioned him he had an answer for everything he was just very it's very good at rationalizing and overwhelming you with logic so you think folks and he was always like one of those people used to defer to him quite a lot because he was so expert on all these little areas and everything so you felt like he's not gonna listen so you drop hints and try and steer him for a while I did think I could steer him away you know these comic books and get some tv works and media work but he wasn't interested but the day he come back the following morning I went up the shops came back and when I come back he was at the door he's just a freaking leaflet here from some gardening people and he showed me and he was like I think they're undercover police so I found the number and it's a dead number check the neighbors none of them have had it you know so my address is a bit they're already on my address we got the high street to get a load of getting kitted out with stuff and whilst we were up there he's like yeah bloke behind me over the road white shirt look over there's a guy there just lingering and we walk up the road there's a woman in the entrance one of the shops up the road he points her out so he's a straight away and as we walked down his clock done and they realize he's clocked them and they're just yeah smart yeah you know we're just letting you know we're here and so within hours he's left he goes off my my idea that I would kind of kind of get him onto a normal path it just kind of it was a waste of time really. What did you do then? Immediately he went to work I started work on this comic book thing there was no money in it initially but I thought I'm going to carry on we've been doing it for a year or so while he was at Valdemore prison and in Holland so I carry on doing that and a year later that gets published and by that point my dad's he's he's done quite a few frauds he's done you know like bank fraud he's done a bit of that he's bought some parcels then so he's done a bit of that and but then he joins me for these book signings when we start to get in the newspapers and there's a bit of controversy an MP wants to book band he finds out there's a there's a fella from Cobb called Mick Mclynch he's kind of smuggling them into Winston Green and getting them sent in the MPs aren't happening the prison's not happening it gets in this two pages in the mercury and so it's great for the book but it's it gets my dad a lot of attention a lot of the people who's working with don't really like it too much it's like you know you can't he's held high profile enough as it is without him being in newspapers so a few of them weren't too happy about it and but me and him we were we were never been better in that respect I kind of ignored the crime stuff that was going on a fair bit he had a lot of people around him at that time because a lot of people waiting for him to come back you've been away all those years and while he'd been away they hadn't made that much money and now he was back it was like you know turning you've got all these suppliers you know all these contacts and things are going to be like the good old days you know it's kind of like that but me and him it's mostly we did the comic books together and I'd carry on with that you know legal straight work and I'll go see him on the Sunday morning we'll go through what's been happening in the papers that week and what was going on with a new book and then his people would start arriving and I'd be like well I'm gonna shoot off then and he'd be like no stick around you see what's going on and everything I'm like no I believe give it a miss and then one week ago and this is a Vayner's camera on the tree outside he's just saying watch out for the camera and it's like the old days again and you think this is going back in the same direction all over again and it turns out that's what's happening but it's a lot bigger scale than he thought and I thought because at that point all the police squads are kind of working together it's national it's soccer that time and they're lazing with the Dutch and also my dad at that point is way impatient by that point because he's kind of in the old days he drove everywhere he never took flights anywhere and now he's taking flights every just hasn't got the patience for it and there's about 10 people involved and it's that's too many people you know you've got to keep things small and keep them low key and everything and a lot of them aren't that low key they're kind of well known virtually all of them have been in prison you know they stand out they're not blending in and so they start they've got phone intercepts on all the phones like 10 of them not just one they've got them on 10 of them and these are Dutch intercepts as well so they're kind of watching everything my dad's still using his codes but they're not quite as good there's hopping between Holland and here and everywhere and so this little group they've they're all they're all sorry for the surveillance but one day my dad's over in Holland he's getting a parcel sorted to come over and there's all Dutch police everywhere bulldozer comes through the gates armed police everywhere they've seen him coming a few minutes before and they've got away from the parcel and everything but he's kind of stuck with it so he's held up in Holland the lawyer rings me up tells me what's happened to the old man and I'm like oh great this is this is the worst one because he's actually caught with it I always thought when he gets caught it's always conspiracy because you'll never catch him with anything but he says no he's been caught with it this time and that's more serious but on the other hand he's in Holland and the sentences in Holland aren't that high so from there it's a case of all the other in the UK will wait to see what's happening because he's been caught in Holland and it's technically it's a the Dutch have arrested not the British but then over the following six months there's all this trading behind closed doors and the British wanted for conspiracy they're not happy with this being charged in Holland and they do some sort of deal where they'll bring him over here and so the others are all charged with possession in Holland but my dad's called out for conspiracy and when he's pulled over and he's on the flight being extradited they arrest everybody unfortunately they don't arrest me because I'm kind of at that point I've got a few regrets when they find him he's got he's got my books and stuff with him these comic books I did and he's got a film contracts and all the my business cards he's got all this because when they're going to ask him what you're doing in a house full of drugs he's going to say I'm researching this new book I'm doing with my son and that's the answer he's going to give and so I'm kind of implicated quite a bit and all this stuff in the newspapers doesn't seem so smart now because we're very closely associated and but fortunately I'm not raided which is a I'm up at five o'clock that morning just waiting just waiting and hoping and then start getting phone calls of partners of people who've been raided anything okay that's that's four that's five and in the end there's 10 of them all raided all kind of questioned I think in the end eight of them are remanded to Winston Green and it's going to be all of them and at that point they realized that they've all got intercepts on them and my dad's intercepts because usually they stop at the borders these are in Holland and they're in England and they've got all the surveillance at the airport surveillance in the streets of Amsterdam surveillance around Coventry they've got everything really they're really overboard because it's a it's cat be cat scene usually you don't have those resources and it seems it's kind of a bit of a grudge because they're the years the one years ago they lost when you got not guilty the one after had to get dumped because it wasn't strong enough and he was on the run so long and this is kind of payback early so we're kind of facing another trial Birmingham Court again it's a bigger court you have to kind of adjust the court there's that many defendants this time it's going to be mega scale and of course they were going to go not guilty despite these intercepts and even one of them even turns on me kind of confesses an interview it's that bad but he comes back on side you all stick together and that's what they do but one thing that is there that you're going to negotiate with is this roving bug you know where they activate your cell phones the police just with a bit of software they activate your cell phone and they'll just record what you're saying around the table they were doing that years like a terrorism technique which was it was denied at the time they were doing it but they were doing it all the time and hollandape is quite common and they used that on this case and they were legal and my dad was like well we'll get this phone out because if these intercepts were legal we'll get the case thrown out that's what they're banking on and in the case it went ahead they were going to expose it in open court and nick davis from the Guardian was going to be there reporting it and it would be going the national papers and from there every case involving international intercepts will be subject to appeal so it was my dad reason there's no way they're going to allow this to go into court and then in the final days we get to court and they decide they'll do a deal initially they want 12 but then the barrister's arguing now he's arrested hollandape you can't you can't give him that and they get them down they get them down to a five and in the end they all go for they all go for guilters and they all get five fours and threes instead of 12 eights and tens they all get low sentences and but that that's kind of at that point you realize it's just not going to change it's like i said it's that cycle who was it for your dad it met and he's guilt to stand up and say he was guilty first time in life he'd done that and he's thinking he thought he'd got the best deal he was going to get um it was because he was caught it was it was kind of clumsy in that one it was kind of him it is worse do you think that's because he was getting a little older as well you get you take your foot off the gas you're not as as on the bullet you say taking flights yeah logs everything that becomes lazy yeah all that kind of yeah i mean i i said to him i said what's what's all this you're getting flights and why are you booking them on credit cards are actually people with you you always use other people's credit cards you never use people from in the group and it was just all this sloppiness and i was you know like i said when he scored me years ago he scored me when he was at his best so years later and i could ask him about these things and he was like well i'll be off to spain soon it's really matter you know by the time they come on we can't we won't be able to touch me um but he just must underestimated them overestimated himself and like i said he was a bit maybe he was getting older he just didn't have that patience he once had what happened the one to go from that sentence well a year a year into that sentence uh it does when he you know this thing with the bullet not real yeah start to get the scans and all that and when you eventually got a scan here they said you kind of riddled with cancer you got cancer all over your lungs it's every you know uh and that was a real big thing because it's terminal and they said you've basically foked really you've got you've got weeks you may have months um but you've you know just know that's it really so you got out on compassionate grounds and and then they proposed an operation which might give him a few more months it's like a real savage one so he took the operation and kind of really battered him about and everything he kind of aged 20 years within just a you know a day or so um and then he started to he was at a farmhouse with his girlfriend at the moment like luxury luxurious cottage and all this sort so she was really well off and i'd go visit him there and he was kind of lost you know because it's like every time i knew him he was always knew what he was going to do he always had massive plans first time in his life he never had that you know there's no phones nothing was going on allowed phones he's only had one phone at because they were like a court order um but he was just not himself old self uh but then a few weeks later i've got a phone call saying look he's left his partner he's his sister's he's on a caravan on a drive i think how great he's got cancer and he ain't got long to go he's just had an operation he's he's moved in with her so i'll go up and go up to this caravan and i hear his voice coming outside and it's strong like it used to be and he steps out and he's kind of just like it used to be he's no longer looking you know he's kind of got some youth back he sounds like his old self he's doing you know he's doing some buying and selling and that uh just like he was when he was in his early 20s a bit ducking and diving he's got a few ideas and parcels south america i don't want to know you know uh going on skype they're talking to a fella called long air out in spain and working out transport and everything but he sounds like his old self he's got real buzz about him again and that's what he'll do for the last few years he'll just buy and sell and he'll kind of work on these parcels that are coming in connect people up work on all these little take less risks but because at the end i thought he's got cancer he could do anything now he's never going to serve any sentence um but he doesn't actually get caught in the end he just goes three or four years because his cancer especially killed him off 12 months later he wants his passport back and soccer are objecting because like you're supposed to be dead you're supposed to be dead at christmas that was the you know that's the deal but no he's then he starts going spain again so and yeah it's just just just carries on and i'll just phone him and you know at that time i'm studying psychology and i'm working my brother in building and every time you found coming over i'm in spain and you know i'll catch you when i get back and it's never enough time and that um near the end he was like i think three weeks before he died he was he was in a biplane on you know on the med going along the coast trying to locate a cocaine parcel they've been thrown overboard i'm still up to all sorts and then he earned some med medical cannabis licenses for spain because he had his cancer get these medical licenses which we was going to use because uh you could grow it several places in spain just kind of duplicate it and then he'd import cannabis all to the uk was the idea so everything you do in spain because you have the cancer would legally sound it'd be fine it was only risk when you wanted to the uk he thought he was going to make a fortune with it but then the cancer started to come on the last few weeks and probably the last 10 days that's when it really knocked him down but up till then he just slowed a little that's all he did he never really never really was an invalid and those final days he was like well he's gonna have to wait i've got Dutch people coming over and some Irish thing i've got to do and then i've got to see the lawyer in spain it was just all this list of things that he had to do but then the cancer came on strong and it just he just kind of overwhelmed him in the end how was your relationship before he passed it was good before he passed did you have any regret with it but he or me both of you is like i'm getting you involved in the business and for maybe you're not i got a bit more ruthless and say look what the fuck are you doing like it's the same i've gradually kind of accepted him i had that bit when i was younger you know you want him to certain people to be a certain way and i've learned you got to accept him the way he is it's his character it's kind of built into him you can't change so it's like when he was the way i got to spend time with him was by working with him because if i didn't work with him you never really heard of him unless he wanted something or he wanted to do a bit of deal with you or something and that was just his nature it's like that with everybody there's nothing personal when you're younger you can take these things personal but it was the way he was made and i think all those years inside if he had a choice he would have didn't think differently he just couldn't do it differently he had he liked that buzz and he was kind of addicted to this this lifestyle and it wasn't really about the money it was all just about cheers yeah that's what it was about because if it was about the money he would have saved some and been ruthless with it everyone would be met him or work with him also he was fucking too generous with money he used to just give too much away and he always treated it like you know i've earned it it might as well just give it might as well spend it on people they might as well enjoy it saying a lot of people use your dad yeah yeah but it's part of part and parcel of it they would say well we used we did stuff for him you know it's kind of a mutual thing and my dad was quite practical that way people use each other it's it's how you relate to people you kind of do through projects and doing stuff but he never took things emotionally very personal and i don't think he appreciated how hard it was for us sometimes because emotionally sometimes it is difficult especially when you're young i mean when you look back and you think well that wasn't particularly nice and it was nasty and unpleasant and everything some some of the years when i was a kid but he never meant any of it it was just the way he was he couldn't really really be any other way yeah how was it when he passed like was it obviously it's a sad moment but you knew the day was coming but we you're never happy that you lose a loved one but with the life he lived in always in prison always the surveillance always living on yeah it's like walking on eggshells constantly it's the paranoia enhances as well that you're never on edge like you're trying to live a good living but you still love your dad that you still want in your life that you can't really enjoy it but when your dad passed was it a it's not what you let peace know dad are i mean one thing was he wasn't inside there was a friend of his who died inside he had cancer he went blind and they wouldn't release him yeah i'm surprised that they really should have yeah so he did he did well to get released he was free because he could have been caught out in the bloody med on a boat with loads of cocaine and been South America and died there but he died a freed man and he had loads of family and friends around him when he went and he didn't complain it like all the years inside never complained never complained about pain he was just never complained about the cancer it was just it was just annoyed that it come too quick at the end and he had lots to do still he says i've you know i've got these deals to sort out and he was a bit annoyed he couldn't finish his deals um but at the end he was just he just went peacefully he sat with him the psychology can say the things like that you give get a better understanding your dad the way function the way what the patterns that you've done yeah i think so that is your own mind yeah i did a lot of psychology and you do all the different schools and i found the schools that kind of helped make sense of him um so i was kind of okay with i kind of it is this thing of social character and character once you kind of been made that way it's difficult to change that character um you can change the you know what you're driving towards and you just wouldn't change that i think it's your money you've got that buzz and this thing with the police and authorities and it was like a game and you just couldn't really give that up i think normal life really bored him you know just sitting you know just sitting and watching tv or going for meals or he found that boring yeah how was it reading the book when did your dad pass it 2015 2015 yeah so the book how was it reading the book in ways the books so i mean he passed away i was doing my degree at the time once i finished my degree i wanted to study b psychotherapists but you gotta go off and do experience and why i was doing that i started writing the book and it was great because it was like having my dad around every day it was like i'd write about him and come alive on the page and i think this is great and i just love writing the book because it was like more and more stuff come back so i enjoyed it it was almost like i said i've always had that relationship where he's always out there he's always out in spain he's on the run he's in prison he's always out there he was never sitting at home coming in he never expected him to come home at six o'clock we never had that relationship he was always out there and it was like that with the book for the two two and a half years i wrote it he was about to go and i could put everything in not just the the very best but i could put some of the worst in it because it's going to be three-dimensional it can't just be what a great guy he was because he was a flawed guy as well he was a three-dimensional person and he had a bit of a dark side i guess but the book i love writing i liked it to include everything as well so it kind of like i said included the prison visits and stuff which i thought was important to show you know the family side yeah because most books they don't include that sort of thing it's kind of important because it gives it a bit of depth it gives another layer oh it's to get an understanding because we can glorify it later so your dad watching in films it's it's a turn-on it's an attraction like i beat the system i'll beat this i'll make millions i'll live that extravagantly but even if your dad was making a hundred million a month it still wouldn't have stopped him no it wasn't the money just it wasn't really about the money yeah i mean at the end he didn't have any he didn't really have any money when he died and he was quite happy because it was like it spent it all that's what it was for spending and giving away can't take it with you yeah how working people buy the book jason they can buy on amazon yeah some good bookshops you'll get it but amazon i'll just get straight there and we'll leave the link in the description just before we finish up how do you feel like talking about that journey of your dad's that bring back some emotion like obvi's life and look passing and just yeah like i said he's always going to be there with me now because it's kind of uh nick davis sent me some intercepts the other day and then my dad on the phone and he was saying i'll be there in five minutes and you know i'm just coming down the road and all this sort of stuff he's always a sense that he's around and with the book being out it still feels like he's around he's just in book form now in his you know his life's still there and he's still alive in a certain respects i just wish he could have seen it what happened after he passed for anybody that's watching that's maybe stocking a leaf a cream what advice would you have for them in the long run there's kind of no winners in it i mean me and my brother we talk now and then and you think all these people we used to know how many of them did well out of it there's almost none most of them do a lot of prison time and few of them end up dead early it's nowhere nowhere there's no there's no future that's what part of the reason none of this went into it would have been easy just to say oh dad give us a pass or we'll we'll you know but none of us ever did that because it's like no future in this really it's not great quality in life always looking over your shoulder always looking for surveillance and stuff i always want to do some creative you know you can't do that with in that sort of environment so criminal life i think it's entertaining and at a distance but close up there's a lot more to it and that's what really a book should show it should show warts and all not just the you don't want to be glamorizing stuff like that it's only glamorous from a distance when you get up close it's not a nice business and that should be shown really yeah your social media is as well jason just in case anybody wants to get in contact i'll ask questions what what's the old man of me yeah i'm on twitter i respond to my stuff there and i've been doing yeah i've been doing all sorts of things next couple of minutes as well jason for coming on today and telling your story i've really enjoyed that i wish you all the best for your future god bless and safe driving phone brother all right thank you thanks